


The Three

by Missy



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Mild Angst, Multi, Muteness, Polyfidelity, Requited Pining, Romance, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: She was strong and brave, was Pearl of the Ocean.
Relationships: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid/Prins | Prince/Prinsesse | Princess
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9
Collections: Holly Poly 2019





	The Three

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alyndra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyndra/gifts).



She is young and beautiful, is Pearl of the Ocean. The youngest of her family, her father’s adored favorite, the most beloved among her dozen sisters, there was not a whim of hers that went unindulged. She had shells brought to her cradle; fish beautifully colored, and any sweetmeat she so desired.

But soon Pearl grew old enough to know that seashells and warm fish weren’t enough to pacify her. Soon, she turned her eyes toward the surface – to the galleons sailing over the heads of her family. She caused her father much anxiety with her pining and mooning, her big blue eyes turned heavenward and sighing like an angel gone astray.

Pearl knew what she would choose from the moment she turned 16. When He fell overboard and into her arms, and she found herself nursing him to health on heatweed and soothemore.

On her sixteenth birthday, she would be given a choice – to walk among human bodies without a voice, or to stay in the ocean – and become one of the many women who used their voice to draw sailors to their doom.

Her father knew what she would choose before she chose it. Gleb the Handsome. He was tall and dark-haired, and had merry, laughing eyes. Pearl saw him weekly, when he took his fishing boats out to their section of the ocean and hauled beautiful creatures up onto their deck to eat. Everyone worried about Pearl whenever she went to the surface – worried that she’d do something wild to get his attention and spoil the secretive nature of their world. 

So her father shouted and railed against her choices, but Pearl would not budge. She would become one of the surface people, would sacrifice all, just to spend time with this man. She didn’t give a damn what her father had to say about it anymore.

Her father did the only thing he could do under such circumstances – he released her to her fate. On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, Pearl awoke with aching, bloody legs, resting upon the rocky shore of an unfamiliar kingdom. All looked grey, but she felt delight in her breast, for this was where her beloved came from. In her rags, she stumbled toward the path from the beach, looking for someplace 

Somehow, even in her youth, she was aware of the weight of her father’s sacrifice. 

This was Pearl’s first experience with unselfish love.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

She wandered the streets of the small village outside of the castle. Wandered and waited to see him, looking into every face with a desperate hunger she’d never had before.

That was when the Princess found her, tucked up under a blue velvet cloak, her big green eyes wide with pity.

“Poor dear. Whatever’s happened to you?”

Pearl had heard such comments made about her appearance before by villagers passing her by, but she’d chosen not to speak to them. This beautiful creature spending her words upon her head felt like a miracle.

Pearl gestured toward her throat, toward her head – crown, voice.

The woman turned to her steward. “She must come with us. I believe she doesn’t know who she is.”

But she knew exactly who she was! Pearl’s eyes filled with frustrated tears, yet she followed the princess along. She sat in a coach, and found herself taken to the general safety of a very beautiful marble palace set upon a seaside cliff.

In a small room beside the princess’ she was told to rest. “No harm will come to you here,” she soothed Pearl. “Your bearing, your manner, the smoothness of your hands – surely you are a lost princess yourself. Until you regain your voice, you must stay with us. My fiancé will understand. Surely he must.”

Pearl felt overwhelming gladness at the woman’s proclamations. How could she ever repay her?

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

Pearl became used to the rhythms of the castle. Treated with respect because of the protection of Mariana, she was afforded time with her women and spent hours listening to them, learning to sew with filaments and muslin instead of seaweed and bone, and her heart began to sing sweetly for her. She communicated with broad gestures that were generally well understood.

And the whole time she was with Mariana, everything seemed to change and shift, warming, filling her up with beauty and joy.

And then the Prince arrived. Mariana was delighted, filled with happiness, as she ran to meet his horse, the men coming through the portico.

And the sight of him made Pearl stop short.

There, standing before her, was Gleb.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

It did tear at her, this feeling of wanting to respect Mariana and their building connection – and for Gleb, the man she had literally shifted her shape for.

He was kind toward her, as the preparations for Mariana’s wedding to him intensified. 

“I can’t help but feel as if I know you,” he says once, striking her dead like a bolt of lightning from the sky.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

“Do you know who the girl is?” Gleb asked Mariana.

“No,” she said. “I wish I did. But she appeared one day out of the blue in the market, with that bearing of hers – I had to bring her home.”

“That, her inability to speak…I’ve heard stories, legends, but never believed them.”

“What sort of legends?” There was fear in Mariana’s voice. 

“Sailors I traveled the world with,” said Gleb. “They said that mermaids – royal mermaids – could sell their voices for a chance to be human. And if they don’t find love before a year has passed, they return to the sea – as seafoam.”

“Oh, how terrible!” Mariana said.

“There is a way to break the spell – if the princess really is, well, a princess – but I don’t remember how the legend goes. I’ll have to ask some of my friends. Make sure she stays here until then..”

“Of course,” Mariana said.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

Months passed by before Gleb returned with advice from his sailor friends, and Pearl was still there, still beside Mariana, though more confused and thus more subdued.

“The love of two can break the curse,” he said. “That’s what they told me. What does that mean?”

“It means,” said Mariana, “that if we both love her enough, she won’t become seafoam.”

“All three of us? Together?” asked Gleb. He raised an eyebrow. “Do you love her, Mariana?”

“I’ve come to know her over the months, and know she feels for you - and for me. And I feel for you, and for her. It may take more time for you to find out how you feel about her, but you will come to speak the words some day, as you have spoken them to me."

Mariana nodded. “The three of us together may break the spell.”

The sound of a stone hitting the ground made them spin around. They only saw the cloud of Pearl’s hair as she turned and ran from the scene.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

“Pearl?” cried Gleb, his hand in Mariana’s. They were searching the windswept coast, filled with fear that something terrible had happened to the poor girl.

It was Mariana who spotted Pearl standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind buffeting her.

“Wait!” cried Gleb. She went very still.

“You did all of this for me?” he asked her. “Only because you wanted to be with me.” A brief nod of the head. “Oh, Pearl. You didn’t need to go to such extremes.”

Pearl stared at the ground. 

“We’re not mad with you,” Mariana said. “Oh, we both adore you in our own ways.”

Pearl shifted around to face him, carefully.

“Love is something you learn,” said Mariana. “And I would love to learn with you.”

Pearl saw them both. And then saw them extend their hands to her.

She took them.

****

**~~CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC~~**

She is young and beautiful, is Pearl of the surface dwellers. So is Mariana of the Kingdom by the Sea. So is Gleb of the Kingdom of the Waves. Hand in hand and in hand, they walked together by the ocean, one voicing what the other thought, one feeling what the other felt – an endless echo breaking the waves.


End file.
